CITY AND SUBURBAN
Upset insides bring on a nasty case of listeria nervosa
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Lsider trading is to investment what listeria is to eating. If we hadn't heard of it, we wouldn't worry about it. We might, once in a while, get the equivalent of an upset stomach, but that is in the nature of stomachs, and as likely as not our own greed has upset them. But give our unease a technical label, and all is transformed. Officious parties rush in to proclaim an epidemic. It's a scandal, they say, it's everywhere, of course we can't prove it but why should we have to, standards of financial hygiene are appalling, everyone must be brought into line, stricter rules and less consumer choice, the public must be protected against itself, we must have more research, more resources, more inspec- tions, more chaps, wider powers and more money. It is a variation on a familiar theme. The Stock Exchange's professional insiderologist says that the virus is wide- spread all over the country — how exactly can he tell? The Department of Trade and Industry hints of a sinister circle of City insiders, and is mounting an inquiry to bring them to justice. Fortified by new law, and by an Appeal Court judgment which wrenched at the statute to widen the offence, the DTI has been prosecuting people on charges of insider trading. Juries, though, have tended to acquit them, and judges to throw the cases out. To you and me this might suggest that the original diagnosis had been shown to be faulty. To the officious parties and their enthused or listerical followers, it suggests a need to redefine the disease and lower the standards of testing until enough peo- ple can be shown to have caught it. For this outbreak of self-interested over- excitement (or listeria nervosa) the pre- scribed treatments are cold water, acu- puncture, and rest.
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